CPI INCREASES 0.88 PER CENT IN AUGUST

Việt Nam's consumer price index (CPI) this month increased 0.88 per cent month-on-month, fueled by higher prices of petroleum, rice and housing, the General Statistics Office (GSO) announced on Tuesday.

The CPI in the first eight months of this year expanded 3.1 per cent over the same period last year and the core inflation rose by 4.57 per cent.

Among the 11 groups of goods and services used to calculate the CPI, 10 saw higher prices than the previous month while only the postal and telecommunications group experienced a price drop of 0.17 per cent.

In the eight-month period, education rose by 7.28 per cent year-on-year, contributing 0.45 percentage points to the overall CPI increase.

Housing and construction materials hiked by 6.65 per cent over the same period last year, causing the overall CPI to surge by 1.25 percentage points.

Meanwhile, the price of culture, entertainment and tourism services gained 3.18 per cent.

Food items saw their prices climb 3.04 per cent, mainly due to expansion in consumer demand during holidays and Lunar New Year (Tết), which caused the overall CPI to increase by 0.65 percentage points.

The price of electricity rose 3.99 per cent and prices of other goods and services increased by 3.98 per cent compared to the same period last year.

Meanwhile, in the first eight months, the price of kerosene decreased by 12.19 per cent year-on-year; and that of domestic gasoline went down 17.56 per cent.

Domestic gas prices fell by 11.3 per cent in line with world prices.

The price index of the postal and telecommunications groups decreased by 0.53 per cent due to the decrease in the price of old-generation phones.

GSO also pointed out that core inflation this month increased by 0.32 per cent over the previous month, and by 4.02 per cent over the same period last year.

On average, in the first eight months of the year, core inflation increased by 4.57 per cent over the same period last year, higher than the overall average CPI growth at 3.1 per cent.

The main reason is that the average domestic gasoline price in the eight months declined by 17.56 per cent year-on-year, the decrease in gas price by 11.3 per cent is a factor that restrains the growth rate of CPI but belongs to the group of goods that are excluded from the core inflation calculation.

Source: VNS